There are cups of Quality Street lining the sides of the Bush Theatre stage as we enter. Murmurs of excitement and sideways glances at the chocolatey treats. This is going to be interesting...
MONEY the Game Show is the latest co-production between the Bush Theatre and Unlimited Theatre, written and directed by Clare Duffy. The project began life in April this year as part of the Platform 18: New Directions Award, through which Clare won £6,000 - enough to pay for three weeks of rehearsal and two weeks of performances. The whole process made Clare think about the value of money, which fed into her preoccupation with the financial crisis that began in 2008. Now, a redeveloped, rewritten - and more expensive! - version will hit the Bush stage from 31 January to 2 March 2013.
As part of the Bush Theatre's aim to 'demystify the theatre', the audience at RADAR2012 were invited to take part in a game that captures the 'spirit of the show', giving us the chance to directly influence the development of the final piece. We got to learn about hedge-fund managing in what turned out to be the most fun economics lesson imaginable. Split into two teams, we 'went long' on our volunteer blowing up a balloon quicker than our opponents, 'went short' on our balloon bursting first (betting on failure) and 'hedged' choosing between success for small rewards or failure for large rewards. With chocolate at stake, we quickly became greedy. We swapped edible wealth for moral bankruptcy, happily betting on the failure of the Euro leading to massive death and destruction while planning how we would enjoy our riches in Brazil. The final show will have a similar structure: the audience will become contestants, split into two teams led by ex-hedgefund managers turned performance artists. Only this time, there will be more at stake, because the losing manager will kill himself at the end of the show. How will greed and and ethics mix then?
After the sneak peek, Unlimited Theatre launched their 'See Your Pound On Stage' programme. The stage will contain 10,000 real pound coins and they need to start collecting them somewhere! In exchange for our shiny coins, we got to become shareholders and once the production has finished a Extraordinary General Meeting will be held to vote on what to do with the money. Judging by the preliminary suggestions at the event, this will surely be a fascinating social experiment. Will we be greedy - holding a lottery giving one shareholder the chance to keep everything? Charitable - donating the money to a good cause? Arty -investing the money in a new play? Or sadists - gluing the money on the pavement and laughing at people trying to get at it? We'll find out in March!
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